Living on a family farm meant a lot of things, but most of all it meant hard work. When I was coming up through the first ten years, I remember grand daddy Colie, had a horse, a mule and a cow. The horse and the mule were kept in a stable across the path from the pack house across the side yard from their house. Between these was the smoke house toward the back of the yard. On the other side was the chicken pen. Then off beyond the field were the hog pens. You wanted to keep them a ways off because they could smell up the place if they were close by. With no running water around, water had to be pumped up and toted to the farm animals, besides for our own use. Half bushel buckets were used for watering and they would get very heavy in a short distance. But we managed. When grand daddy died my dad was left to work his farm and what became grandmother’s farm as well. At the age of seven he had a Farmall Cub and a brand new Allis Chalmers A model. This is when my dad introduced me to driving. He’d put me on that Cub tractor and tell me to push down on the clutch and he’d put it into gear and tell me to slowing release the clutch. I’d choke it off of course and he’d get upset with me and we’d try again. It took a while, but I finally got the hang of it and he’d get me going toward where ever he wanted the tractor and I’d drive it there. Most of the time he was wanting it in the field and he’d need the truck too with the fertilizer on it, so my getting it out there kept him from having to walk back for the truck. It was me who had to walk back home, which leads me to another of my expeditions.
When I was still a youngster, one evening I went into the kitchen at grandma’s where I asked her where grand dad was and she said he was out in the stable feeding the horse and mule. I went out to the stable and I didn’t see him anywhere, so I figured he must have walked off back into the field to the hog pens. I went on down behind the field to the hog pen and he wasn’t there either. So, I proceeded to continue walking on around to the back field. When I had gotten almost to Uncle Snodie’s side of the field I heard my name being called. Grand daddy had gone back into the house and grandma asked where I was and grand daddy said he hadn’t seen me, so they went outside and called me, but I was no where to be found. This lead to a frantic search and after about a half hour they caught up with me. I didn’t get a whipping, but I did get a stern talking to. You see, the reason is that back there where I was is where bear roamed. I would have been a neatly packaged little meal for one if I had run across one. Oh, I can see you scratching your head, “Uncle Snodie”? Yes Uncle Snodie Hodges lived across the field from grand daddy’s farm. He had his own little farm that ran along side of and behind theirs. Aunt Minnie was his wife and we saw each other about ever day.
Daryl Lee, Mike, Theresa Lee, Me, Marsha Lupton holding her brother Hi Jr and Danny
Well, I might as well introduce you to the “locals”. Across from grand daddy’s house was Cousin Julia, as my dad called her and her daughter, Sybil and her husband Johnny Sumerall. Cousin Julia had one other daughter named Molly. Molly was a bit slow. She wasn’t what you’d say mentally retarded, but she had something going on that left her unable to do for herself. Over across the fork in the road was Willis Cayton, his wife and daughter Beulah Mae and her little boy, Dwight. Now Dwight is another story for later. Directly across from the church at the fork from us was Bill and Thelma Cayton. They were around till I was about ten and they moved to Holly Ridge. Bill became “Itchy” Popkin’s right hand man in the furniture business there, which later became Furniture Fair in Jacksonville. His older son Harvey rose up to take his place when he died and at this writing Itchy is still kicking and Harvey is in his sixties. I see Harvey about twice or more a year since my family has lived in Richlands for the last twenty five years. You never seem to get away from family. You see, Harvey and I are cousins. On down across the field from Cousin Julia was her son Theodore and his wife Nina Mae and their children Jack, a daughter who’s name escapes me and H.T. H.T. wasn’t my favorite of people. He was just enough older to pick on me and beat the crap out of me every so often. I could go on, but may more introductions later on. Further down the road was another distant relation by the name of Tom Rowe and his wife. Her name escapes me, but Tom had a brother, Lawrence Rowe who was deaf and dumb and lived in a house across the road from him that had no power or running water much similar to ours. There were fields all around his house. It kind of sat in the middle. My dad tended “Mr. Tom’s” farm. That’s what we called him. Well one day my dad was cultivating the field behind the house and Lawrence went out on the back porch to take a bath. Well he had not seen dad back there and he was washing up from a wash pan next to his pump on the porch jay bird naked and daddy happed to see him and said he chuckled to himself to the thought of what would eventually transpire. That was when Lawrence turned around and realized daddy was there being naked he got all excited and was scrambling all around the back porch to covered up.
A little further down the road was Vernon and Lena Rowe and their daughters Mary Lou and the name of the other escapes me at the moment. Mary Lou spent quite a bit of time at our house with her friend Phyllis who lived between her and us. I can’t say why they spent a lot of time at our house. I’ll only say they did for now. There were a couple of other people who lived between in that direction, but I won’t mention them for now.
On back towards the highway (306) lived my Aunt Lottie and Uncle Rufus just across the creeks. On down a little further were Uncle Snodie’s son, wife and son James. Across the road from them was Jodie Sawyer. I had no love loss for this man when I was in my teens. Just a bit further was Hobert Walker, his wife and his brother. Then around the bend from them was Fanny Sawyer and her husband and her sister. This was Harvey’s grandmother. At the time of my young years there was no one else between there and the highway. At the corner was the local store owned by Lathel Ward Cayton and his wife Leslie. They had two daughters and a son. The younger daughter was Gloria, who I spent twelve years in the same grade with in school. Okay, enough of the introductions. I hold the right to mention more people as time goes on. I may be on the border of boring for the moment.
If you’re wondering, yes, we did have electric power to the houses in my time. Most of the houses were built before electric power came along, so most of the wiring was make-shift and the drops from the power poles looked more like an extension cord. This means that sometime before I was eight or so, my grandparent’s home got a well with an electric water pump and grandmother got running water inside the house for the kitchen sink only. She never had a bathroom while living there. Another luxury item that came along during this time was a TV. This was novel for most anyone in the community. I remember it was an RCA and the whole cabinet sat on a swivel, so it could be turned to where ever you sat in the living room. My first programs on TV were Romper Room and Captain Kangaroo. What was so fascinating was that lady on Romper Room claimed she could look into her magic mirror and say the magic words “Romper, Bomper, Stomper, boo, Tell me, tell me, tell me do. Who’s that watching us today” and then she’d say she was seeing Tommy, Susie, Jeff or whoever, but she never saw me for some reason. Maybe grandma’s TV wasn’t quite powerful enough or something. I never figured it out. Captain Kangaroo had Mr. Green Jeans, Mr. Moose, Bunny Rabbit and Grandfather clock. He was always a source of fun. Bunny Rabbit always suckered him out of carrots. Mr. Green Jeans, always had an animal to bring around to show us. Hum, seems I’d already seen them enough right out in our own yard. Must have been some kids somewhere that hadn’t. Oh, you can never forget Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob and Clarabelle the Clown. The peanut gallery was always full of kids. Mr. Phineas T. Bluster was always there to make trouble, but Howdy was always so nice.
Being a car nut as I got older means I have to say something about what we drove in those days. My grand daddy opted between Chevy and GMC trucks. Daddy was much the same, but we had a Plymouth for the first car I remember. I believe the second car I remember was a newer Plymouth. It wasn’t until we moved to the new house I got more into our cars. We had a 57 Ford and then a 60 Ford station wagon. I remember dad coming home with a Rambler station wagon. Mom threw a fit. She wouldn’t have that thing in the yard. I can’t remember what dad eventually came home with, but as I twelve dad bought a brand new International pickup. It was green and had a big V8 engine. Man was it something. I was driving it all over the fields right from the beginning. See, I’d been driving tractors since age seven and was pretty good with a clutch by then. But I’ll stop here. We need to get back to bringing the family up to moving into the new house.
